South Asian Atiya Fyzee and her Turkish contemporary Zeyneb Hanoum were epistolary travel writers. Despite their variant geographical identities, both had Turkish connections and share similarities in their work. Both made trips to Europe in the early twentieth century when international travel was not as common as it is today. The preferred mode o

Shah Abdul Hannan was a great believer in Islam and lover of his country. He would reach out to any groups that work for one or both of these two entities. He had friends in major political parties and through them conveyed advice to the leadership for the betterment of Bangladesh. He always highlighted the good attributes of people and hardly spok

Often lost in WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter discussions, many academics stray from the pursuit of research and scholarship. Conversely, the slimy and sleazy ones use the vast resources of the Internet to cut and paste materials (words and/or ideas) and insert them in their own writings without acknowledging the sources. Thus, responsible usage of

In his autobiography, Khairabadi provides an eye-witness account of the Great Rebellion of 1857-59 and its aftermath. A landmark event in British colonial history in South Asia, the Great Rebellion (known as Sepoy Mutiny in colonial officialese) impacted colonial relations in the region for the next ninety years. A number of local patriots and free

Nowadays, we often come across unpleasant media reports involving vice-chancellors of various universities in Bangladesh. They reportedly unleash musclemen in the guise of student activists to crush legitimate movements of ordinary students. Academic administrators’ desire to exercise political power at the expense of academic traditions have wor

Lecturers' focus should not only ensure the students are provided with course content they need to pass exams, but also to help them develop the hunger and thirst for knowledge and provide them with inspirational motivation and intellectual stimulation. Only inspirational teachers can light candles in the darkest minds of under-motivated studen

When Noor Ayesha, Rajuma and hundreds of thousands of other Rohingya men and women were stripped of their citizenship, conditioned to live in poverty and humiliation, expelled from their homes and country and were subjected to ethnic cleansings and/or genocides, we did not see any protests or large demonstrations in Myanmar. Will today's protes

There are criminals in every religious community; and they should be treated only as criminals without any reference to their religions. As in other religious populations, in the over 1.5 billion-strong global Muslim community, there are bad elements who should not be allowed to define the religion of Islam even if they shout Allahu Akbar to justif

University communities have an obligation to guide the wider society towards honesty, fairness and morality in both direct and indirect ways. Otherwise, evils in society will creep in and eventually destroy the moral fabric of universities as well as the nation. If people on the upper deck neglect this moral/educational/religious responsibility, th

Ar-Rahnu merupakan satu konsep pajak gadai yang berteraskan prinsip-prinsip Sharī‘ah. Berlainan dengan amalan pajak gadai konvensional (PGK), Ar-Rahnu menitikberatkan amalan pajak gadai yang bebas daripada elemen-elemen yang dilarang oleh Sharī‘ah seperti ribā dan gharar. Berdasarkan keadaan semasa di Malaysia, kajian ini ditulis untuk mengh